


Break Boys of the Banger

by Annie Christ (SmokedSalmon)



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe, Carne Asada Fries, Dark Comedy, F/F, F/M, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Romance, Surfing Bums, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-08
Updated: 2015-01-16
Packaged: 2018-01-15 00:06:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1283842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmokedSalmon/pseuds/Annie%20Christ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mr. Zog's Sex Wax, carne asada fries and piss-soaked wetsuits are the Holy Trinity of southern California's best kept secret Twilight Cove. Vanitas, a jaded twenty-year-old working at Terra's Wave Emporium surf school, has spent the majority of his life fighting the ocean, competing against his best friend Roxas and attempting to make a name for himself in the lineup of professional big wave surfers. When Twilight Cove's surf is outed by Crash magazine, Vanitas' entire life plans are uprooted by the legendary surfer Axel Laemoa who temporarily makes a place for himself in the town's guarded sun and sand. A story about how conversations in the back of a red Volkswagen van and the boys of summer can reveal exactly what it costs to go pro; Vanitas never expected to be so in over his head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sex Wax

" _And this week's blistering heat wave shows no signs of backing down from Twilight Cove. With a high of a hundred and three degrees we advise you stay indoors and…"_

Above my head, a ceiling fan spun banana leaf-shaped blades manufactured to appear as if they'd been hand-carved when really they were just a testament to Terra's ever-expanding collection of dust, cheapness and negligence. The blades determinedly whipped breathy dog air around the peaks of my deflated hair that'd been masking sweat since six in the morning, and instead of cooling me off, all the faux-breeze did was blow hot steam. It'd been this way for three days in a row and the air conditioning in my place of employment hadn't properly functioned since the summer beforehand. No fan could tackle the heat of the steaming shit Satan had dropped on my hometown.

In an attempt to keep sane through my suffering, I'd been belting along to local ska bands that sputtered from my iPod in allttheir brass groaning glory. The trumpet blared over the store's speakers with irritated crackling that was like someone opening a bag of tortilla chips with a trombone. At the song's bridge, I pressed my moist cheek against a fake bamboo wall and wondered, if I stood still long enoug, I'd combust into flames and finally _die_. Early summertime had devoured the shore with a heat wave that made the Four Horsemen look like a kiddie pool, and the downpour of sweat rippling along each nodule of my spine was verification for that apocalyptic joke. That said—there was nothing I could do about my misery except _deal with it._ Ever since I'd started working at Terra's Wave Emporium that'd been the motto he'd preach at me before grabbing his board and walking out the back with Aqua at his side and Ventus running ahead..

_"Deal, Vanitas. Life's only as free as you're willing to make it."_

Because that made any fucking sense in the context of him walking out on his own business without having the decency to at least make me manager. Not that I wasn't accustomed to wasting the best part of my day in a  sand-stained shop with dilapidated tatami mats and shelves heavily laden with Sex Wax, traction pads, my social lif, and just the right amount of absolutely no-variety to impress someone from out of state. It didn't take a whole lot to make a killing off a tourist desperate  to impres his friends. He wanted to return home with riveting surf stories, and that single stick of unused surf wax and shot glass were enough to legitimize his harrowing tales.

Granted, I'd had it imbedded in me from the beginning to scorn anyone willing to buy a shooter from glassware displays that contributed to Twilight Cove's chasm of printed pastel beach sceneries. All of which are headlined by the top one hundred most common names on the census bureau, which I think are mostly located in the Midwest because I've never met a _Eugene_ in California. If I did, then I'd probably take a dump in his mouth and tell him to kiss his mother directly afterward for thinking it was a good idea to name her son something that comes with a lifetime subscription to "Bi-weekly Swirly." The second a biologist discovers the workings behind tourists and their attraction to the kitschy and generally ugly knickknacks along the boardwalk I'll be the first to approach the CDC about having them all gassed. Tourists were supposed to be thanked for keeping the economy afloat, but I hated them enough to help overprice the merchandise. Ten dollars extra for dressing like tacky trash, fifteen dollars extra per screaming abortion.

The Kit-Cat clock hanging behind the counter amplified its ticking when I gripped the edge of a short board as if it were a set of prayer beads and I the bigges sinner of them all. Optimal time for the water was hit or miss, but Terra's shop had two double doors that overlooked the bikini-clad shoreline where pudgy tourists flopped from side-to-side like napping seals and machos ate sand for volleyballs. From where I stood, the waves' crests were giving me masturbatory vibrations; crooking their foamy fingers and telling me they needed a hip-breaking ride. There was no bailing on the boss, though. Things like rent and an upcoming phone bill had to be paid by the end of the month, and I'd blasted a hole through my bank account on a new deck. I often forgot I was an adult on a very technical level, which meant my paychecks kept buying things without my permission.

"V-A-N-I-T-A-S."

When I quit praying for God to drown me in a truckload of napalm, I dragged my sticky cheek along the wall to face the owner of the baby voice that'd spelled my name. Like clockwork, there was Xion between aforementioned doors, two-stepping in dusty slip-ons while smoothing fingers through her dark pixie cut. The petite girl in her Roxy bikini top and yoga shorts was olive-toned and the kind of lean and _mean_ only a special breed of person could take in massive doses. Her wide set hips shifted in jerky side-to-side motions with every lift of her thighs, and that was what I focused on until she stopped.

"Where's Terra?" Once she dropped both feet onto the ground, Xion's eyes flitted from the door to the counter, and with both hands on her hips, she leaned forward to peek through the wooden beads that barely concealed Wave Emporium's stockroom. "You said your shift would be over at two? Terra wasn't with Aqua when I passed her on my way over. Maybe he's almost here. But probably not."

"Terra's flakier than n old scab." My hand left the board. When the front door's bell chimed, I didn't bother greeting the two men who'd fleetingly stepped inside to gauge the value of dolphin-shaped key chains with a script-font 'Twilight Cove' printed along their fins. "He'd leave me here to die if he got the right itch."

Xion strode toward the counter, smacked her hands onto the surface and lifted herself up. She crossed her muscular legs on the makeshift throne and looked at me disapprovingly. It wasn't even because I'd said something. That''s how she'd looked at me since the beginning of our primeval friendship. "Only because he knows you'd stay here to die. It's not like you've ever asked for a raise or a different shift—or anything, really."

"I could tell Terra I was going to rub my dick all over his merchandise and he'd look me in the eye, wait for a wave to crash and then nod before taking off with Aqua. He doesn't hear me." My stomach growled in agreement and the sharp pain of missed breakfast bit my guts. "We're eating as soon as we leave. I'm fucking dying here. Either my alarm has stopped working or I've started turning it off in my sleep."

"Terra did too many breathing exercises when he was in his twenties and burnt up his brain cells. That's why you guys are all so fucking stupid. You should stop holding your breath for five minutes in one go and busting every precious brain cell you have left, because one day you'll think water is air and try drowning yourselves."

I shuffled over and leaned against the counter beside her with my arm propped up and weight pushed against my balancing forearm. Before I said anything, I could see she was anticipating disgust. "But then you could mack the life back into me. Resuscitate me with your mouth and slip me a little tongue. If I burp water into your mouth, then we can just call it the flavor of my adoration for you. After all, I'm still a little salty, but we could always filter it out and… "

"We've crossed that bridge and burned it."

"That wasn't even burning. That was Apollo 1 straight into my heart."

She parted her lips and stared at me for a straight ten seconds as if trying to process everything down to the syntax of those last sentences. "You're the one who called it off because you said you were too busy with the Blistered Skins. What're you even saying? I'm beginning to wonder if you have selective memory."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Which wasn't true. A summer beforehand, Xion and I had broke the seal of our platonic relationship and attempted to pursue something with a little more guts and gleam, but it'd imploded in my face before it could even become a solid reality. After weeks of being in love in the water and seeing how far I could push her knees toward my mattress, our relationship morphed into a firework casualty that was talked about to this day. One minute we'd been engrossed in eachother until I could've sworn she was like a vacuum suctioning air out my lungs, and then the next I was throwing lawn chairs in her direction while we screamed at one another in front of our mutual friends. The fact that we'd been physically separated and shoved into the back of separate cars, kicking up sand and pointing the finger, permeated the reality we weren't meant to be together.

I relented after she didn't say anything. "We're better as _friends_."

"Thank you, Vanitas."

Dragging in sand, Terra barreled through the backdoors and dismissively waved me off only to halt and greet Xion with the kind of sharp smile I'd seen him make on the covers of Surfer he'd been featured in. I thought about force-feeding him a tacky, tie-dye t-shirt whenever he played his shark teeth card, but then I'd be unemployed and starving. As miserable as it was teaching lonely middle-aged housewives who wanted to stuff dollars into my wetsuit's shorts how to paddle, I had to admit it paid better than the average burger-flipping joint. I'd opted out of college to chase waves and find someone willing to sponsor me, and my occupational pickings were slim by my own fault.

"I'm going!" I shouted as I helped Xion off the counter like it was second nature. Once her hands were on her waist and slip-ons rested on the ground, I clocked out before grabbing my backpack bag with its change of clothes. "I'm off tomorrow!"

"Ventus has your shift! I know!" Terra disappeared into the stock room for the keys, and I knew he was closing shop early so that he could work on form with Aqua. It didn't take a genius to know what that meant, and I was still trying to figure out why Aqua was with Terra. After all, it was _Terra_. If there was a secret side to him I hadn't seen in the past year of working under him, then maybe it'd make sense, but I had my doubtss.

Xion motioned for me to follow her out onto the main sidewalk that lined Dusk Boulevard, and I rubbed along the back of my sweaty neck, wondering if I smelled half as bad as I felt. The hairy pits of my arms had collected enough moisture to hydrate the state during a red alert drought, and I purposely kept my arms away from my ribs in order to air dry them. Luckily, I was wearing a black tank.

"Where are we getting food? I need to tell Gross where to meet us."

When Xion said 'Gross' she meant her boyfriend and my on-again-off-again best friend slash band mate. Roxas was a prodigy in the water and apparently a master at keeping Xion wrapped around his finger. As close as I was to Roxas, there was no denying our friendship hadn't entirely recovered since he'd stepped into Xion's vision barely a week after we'd split for good. It only confirmed my original suspicion he'd been wooing her behind my back with his acoustic guitar and _platonic_ shot gunning. More than once, I'd imagined him strumming the chords to "Wonderwall" in front of her with that shit-eating smile that made him appear perpetually aloof. Only I knew Roxas was a total fucking head case like the rest of us, but there was no way I could tell Xion the last 'fight' he'd gotten in was him losing his cool and socking himself in the eye until his sclera bled.

"Tell him we're going to Bettie's."

Xion's groan resembled a sound clip from Debbie Does Dallas. "You mean queso guzzling goodness."

After she shot him a message, we stepped into Bettie Page's corner joint and Roxas was already seated at a booth with his phone out and a red cup of coke bigger than his head. He was sucking at the straw and sneering at whatever he'd seen on his phone, but when Xion whistled, he perked up and pocketed the device with a bright smile. It was so fake I fleetingly imagined reaching up and ripping his lips clean off his teeth. Roxas was tan and muscular with dyed to shit blond hair. His sole purpose in life was to emit vapors of the California stereotype, which came with a monumental price. He was half Japanese-American or something like that. I wasn't completely sure, but because of his genetics he was the product of careful grooming. The only time I saw him take out his colored contacts was before we crashed somewhere, but most of the time he forgot and left them in.

"It is so fucking hot," he announced with a smile, but his sarcasm bled into how he'd spoken with a singsong edge. "My balls are about to swing to my knees."

" _Wow._ " Xion flopped down beside him. "I'm so glad we're together."

"Me too. Kiss me, sweaty girl." He leaned over with puckered lips and Xion hunched her shoulders while side eying him. "Kiss me like you mean it."

She slowly reached up and pushed his face very far away. "Maybe after you wash your mouth out with bleach and find an exterminator who'll fumigate that trash talk."

Roxas determinedly pushed his face against her palm. "Don't be like that."

"Are we going out today?" I tried not to make it obvious I was interrupting them. They were typically good at making us a tricycle and not the bike with the rusted on training wheel, but sometimes they got caught up in their amorous gases. "I didn't even go out and teach anyone today. Terra was like 'nah, man, just fucking rot in here,' because he wanted to go out. If I didn't need my job, then I'd tell him just to close shop for good."

"But he trashed all of his savings, didn't he?" Roxas added while he politely motioned for a waitress to come over so Xion and I could order our drinks. "That place is kind of _it_ for him until he sucks it up and learns how to exploit the fact he's a professional athlete. Aqua's been trying to get him to do it for _years_. Maybe once they're married he'll get back into the scene. I mean, who the fuck decides to drop Red Bull? It's _Red Bull_."

" _I_ heard…" Xion trailed off and ordered a Coke for herself and an orange Fanta for me. "He couldn't handle the competition between him and Aqua, but he played it off as being _too chill_ , and now Vanitas has a job because of it. What a price to pay so that you can have a minimum wage paycheck."

" _I_ think he's a fucking hamburger on steroids." My mouth pinched. "And it's _not_ minimum wage, but thanks for that."

This was a common thing among the collective of local surfers. We threw as much shade as we could and stuffed it into the mold of 'being in the know' in hopes of avoiding any possible guilt. Talking about it wasn't a necessity, but what were we supposed to do? Be good people and fester in the knowledge we had? As if. It was vital for us to have as much grime on each other as we could so there'd always be something to talk about while we floated around and waited for the next wave. The worst things I'd learned about people had been discovered while in the water with Roxas and Xion.

It wasn't until we'd ordered a heaping pile of Mexican food and were picking off each other's sizzling plates did Roxas drop the biggest bomb on us in months. He stopped in mid-bite and leaned over for his backpack. As soon as he unzipped it, the rank smell of rotting seashells and a piss-saturated wetsuit bombed the restaurant, but no one turned their head to investigate the putrid stank that was permeated in our skin cells. The newest and very blotted edition of "Crash" landed between our plates with a silverware trembling thud, and I picked it up. Roxas had dog-eared a specific article I automatically turned to it.

"You smell," Xion observed just because.

"Tell him something he doesn't already know," I snorted and began scanning the page. Roxas was intensely watching me while he chewed on the corntortilla he'd been using to mop up excess pork fat. "What am I looking for?"

"Keep reading, man. It's in there. You'll see it."

He was right. I did see it, but I wish I hadn't. The sacrosanctity of Twilight Cove had been bombarded during the last decade for being one hell of a vacation spot. There weren't many west coast beach towns untouched by athletic media, but even though the tourists were infesting more and more with every passing summer, there hadn't been a rush of foreign surfers attempting to eat up the limited space we already had to deal with. It was an unspoken rule not to exploit Twilight Cove's inviolability to the outside world even if someone went pro, but the reality was we had probably one of the freshest coastlines around. The height of the waves in certain spots was not a fucking joke. I was regularly forced to belly up beneath my surfboard to save my literal ass from being wave pounded.

So that Xion wasn't left out, I began murmuring the clip out loud. "It isn't often we find a gem in our own backyard, but number two on this list could be seen as a proverbial goldmine. In recent years Twilight Cove, California has been enlisted in the top newest vacation spots due to its white sands, culinary diversity and friendly community that caters to financially stable new faces." I retracted from that long enough to roll my eyes into the depths of my brain. Xion laughed at me and I cleared my throat to finish. "What we didn't know was how raw their tight-knit surfing scene is or the consistent quality of their gut-shredding surf. It only makes sense. Four of today's most renowned big wave surfers have derived from the lineup, but now it seems Twilight Cove's best kept secret is up for grabs as long as you're willing to risk facing carnage in its purest form. Not for the faint of heart, the inexperienced crowd might want to sit it out on the cliffs…"

There was more, but I didn't care. Xion's jaw was one more surprise away from landing in her bowl of cheesy rice and Roxas knowingly nodded at the both of us. I couldn't see my face, but the corners of my mouth were beginning to ache because I was attempting to drop my frown into the pits of a godless hell. I was only able to speak after digging into more salsa. "So what the fuck does that mean for this summer? Do you think we're going to get a rush of outsiders? And who wrote that stupid fucking article anyway?"

Xion snatched the magazine from my hands and looked for the author. "Of course—that asshole Demyx would exploit any place that'll get him readers."

Roxas grumbled. "Speaking of big wave surfers…"

"Like have some pride," I was seething. "Everyone knows about this place, okay? But no one fucking comes here for a reason. It's not for the taking."

"What if they start having major competitions here?" Xion slurped down a piece of chicken like it was a string of spaghetti. "Could you imagine how insane it'd be?"

I stabbed at my chorizo. "It's like I can't believe it, but with the way things have been going I can. I just don't _want_ to."

We swapped topics immediately as a coping mechanism, but it was light conversation that barely caulked the gaps made by the article. The issue had been out for almost a month so it was only a matter of time. Maybe all three of us were thinking that, because as soon as we were done stuffing our faces, we agreed to go to our usual spot and spend the majority of the day shooting the breeze. Knowing us, we'd probably end up spending the night there. It was why we headed toward Roxas' above shop apartment that always reeked of motor oil and burnt tofu. He lived there with his twin brother Sora who was a diehard vegan; hence the tofu, but we never saw him for longer than five minutes. Sora was too busy hiding out in their parents' custom board shop with Riku and Kairi.

"Sorry the place is trashed." Roxas kicked a box full of yakisoba cups aside and grimaced when Xion pointedly stared at it. "What do you actually expect from me?"

Deciding he had a point, she refrained from saying anything. "Are we taking a car?"

"There's no real reason," I said and grabbed my board from his living room.

It'd been a week where I slept on his living room couch and desperately attempted to flirt with Kairi, but she was so stuck on the twins there was absolutely no give from her. More than once I'd seen her disappear into Roxas' room with Sora following behind, and I didn't even ask even though it was a direct hit to Xion. That was a huge part of my existence with my friends. I couldn't even begin to question why we did what we did. If Kairi wanted to DP it up with fraternal pretty boys, then fine. No one actually gave a shit, but what did bother me was a lot of time I had to hear it. The walls were deceivingly thin. Either that or they were just outrageously loud and inconsiderate. Probably both.

Xion drew back her lips and fleetingly resembled a horse. "It's so hot."

The sun was eating our shoulders alive by the time we'd managed to gather everything we needed and walked to our spot, and there were two things we immediately found ourselves watching with peeled eyelids. In order to get to the beach you have two options; a parking lot directly off the boulevard that extends into a walkway bordered by tall grass and an assortment of spiked vegetation and then the gravel trail for cars and trucks that wanted to drive directly onto the beach. Regulations were low maintenance on that part of the beach mainly because it was partially out of the way and not tailored to the touristy appeal. Not only that, but tourists were typically bullied right off the sand. The place might as well have had a 'No Tourist Trespassing' sign staked into the sand.

With that in mind, it was safe to say Roxas, Xion and I knew everyone's car. It wasn't often someone got a new ride, so when we spotted the red Volkswagen van perched far back on the beach with a lawn chair and dead bonfire pit out front, there was an exchange of guarded glances. Our radars were hemorrhaging, and we might've been acting like dogs whose favorite hydrant had been pissed on by someone new in the neighborhood, but it was almost as if we'd been bred to handle those situations with snarls and gnashing teeth.

"Who the fuck is _that_?" Roxas broke the silence and pushed back his sunglasses. "Did anyone get a van recently? Would anyone we know even _want_ that van?"

"It's kind of cool," Xion decided with a shrug. "I wonder if anyone here knows who owns it. Whoever it is hasn't been booted yet."

Personally, I didn't want to care about whoever was in the red van. Their vintage piece of trash car was really hindering how quickly I could get my toes wet. Roxas apparently felt the same way because he dropped his bag on a towel alongside my own before Xion could pilfer around the van and begin asking questions. We drifted toward the ocean, which was definitely ripping ass that mid-afternoon. Xion cut the curiosity and followed suit without asking anymore of the questions she was clearly thinking through.

Right then, I could've curled up in the breeze and let it erode me entirely. Not only did it break up the heat, but also the scent of rancid seaweed clumped along the shoreline, being eaten alive by flies, gave off a sickeningly sweet aroma that was decidedly homey. I'd grown up stepping into stringy piles and flinging them at Roxas until he attempted to drown me in six inches of water, and there were days when we felt perpetually young because the scene had never changed. Our childhood's had never really ended.

The thing about surfing that drew me in from the time I first paddled out and on was how it rushed my humanity through me like osmosis. Human in the way that we're insignificant and at the mercy of the world, I mean. There's no way to describe the sheer weakness and simultaneous greatness that stirs together when someone decides to take their fragile body into an inconceivably ominous body of water and greet its churning anger in hopes of conquering salt and foam. As impossible as it seemed and as many times as I'd found myself at the mercy of ten-foot towers of exploding water, there was something that drew me back into the uncontrollable situation with desperate grit.

There was a community that I appreciated being a part of to an extent, but at the end of the day, surfing is a personal relationship between yourself, the water and where you are. In a lot of ways I used the walls of water as a way to vent frustration. In order to cope with a sense of strange inferiority I could never place I threw myself at whatever was willing to take me on. This wasn't typically the norm. Terra had watched me surf, tried to groom me, but our ideology had been so far removed from one another it'd never transpired into anything useful to me. I didn't want to become a part of the water. There was too much to fight for when it came to being my own person. I was already a part of too much.

That day, throwing myself at the waves was what I did while we were out on the water. Between shoving the head of my board underneath waves, drifting beneath crystalline water and dragging my fingers along enclosing pipes I drifted in and out of conscious streams of thought. Mainly, I considered how things seemed to be on the cusp of changing, and there was nothing I could do about it. That was sort of life in a whole, though. Control was limited to the few who were strong enough to barrel through and true strength wasn't half as common as people believed.

"Vanitas!" Roxas was seated on his board watching me. "Are you _trying_ to have that fiberglass ripped out beneath you?"

"What're you talking about?" I stroked my way toward him and sat back beside him once I was turned toward the right direction. We watched Xion trail blaze for a moment. "She's starting to take on some big ones. Out of nowhere this summer, too."

"She told me she's beginning to get the jist of the competitive feel." He grinned as if incredibly proud. "But it's more about her wanting to push herself, which is what makes you great, you know? It's all so internal. That's where this starts."

"Different things work for different people."

Roxas' eye roll wasn't missed, but he smiled through it. When Xion took a fall and resurfaced, Roxas waved both hands at her. "We're going back in!"

He hadn't asked if I wanted to go in, but the sun was beginning to dive into the horizon and the sky was painted in citrus compote. As if on cue, there was an evidently large wave coming in. I'm talking ten to fifteen feet high, and I decided it had my name on it. There was just enough daylight for me to comfortably take the reigns and pursue it. I wanted that final kick of adrenaline before I stuffed my face with carne asada fries and tossed Sora and Riku discriminatory looks for trying to eat seaweed salads within an arm's reach of me. At the last minute Roxas had invited them out to eat with us, and I understood the whole 'inclusion' thing, but sometimes I wanted to gag myself around them.

"That looks rocky. I wouldn't do it." Xion warned as she paddled away and prepared to avoid the initial crash.

"Don't even worry your pretty head about it."

That was the last thing I said to her before vigorously paddling out toward not the biggest I'd seen but still an impressive build up of water.

There were things I didn't know were going on during the next handful of minutes until months later. For example, seated on the red van from before was a man going through the hardest transitioning period of his life. He'd been watching the three of us from the moment we'd turned our backs to his vehicle with a lopsided frown and general disenchantment. Propped on the roof with dirty feet dangling over sand, he was smoking like a freight train and stuffing tortilla chips down his gullet as if we were low rate cable. Though I don't know for sure, I'm pretty sure he looked bored. He had every reason to be bored with us for entertainment in contrast to everything he'd done in life, especially at that time. But it was better than the radio, and because of that boredom, he was the first person to see the water devour me in what could've been a single and fatal bite.

Surf is a lot of chance. People don't think about that as much as they should, because mostly, it's a leisurely hobby. Not everyone is in it for a potential career the way I was, and it's what makes people careless. That's every sport, but there's something innocent about surfing when seen as the casual, small wave sort of pastime. The truth is, nature isn't predictable. You never know when your leash is going to go from being the link to your life saving floatation device or the condemning piece of string that kinks on a piece of coral and sends water rushing into your lungs. Even I regularly forgot what I was dealing with.

Roxas had laughed at me dismissively as I paddled toward the wave. If I was pummeled by water, then no big deal. It happened multiple times a day, but when this particular wave tore into me I wasn't expecting the complete annihilation of my senses because that just didn't happen enough. One minute I was standing up on my board with steady feet and the next I was under pounds of salty H2O with the board's fins unforgivably ramming into the back of my skull as if I'd signed a death wish. Again, this would've been no big deal, but wherever my board hit must've been a damn good place because any sense of up and down became entirely lost to me all at once, and there was soon a sting that let me know I'd sliced open the nape of my neck. That was when the internal holy fuck set in.

My heart seized up and I reached for the surface, which just so happened to actually be down and _not_ the surface. Xion might've made fun of me for being insane about breathing exercises, but the seconds for the average person's tolerance of depleting oxygen were rapidly ticking down as wave after wave attempted to suffocate me. It was basically attrition through and through, but the worst part about being underwater is never knowing when to decide whether or not you're legitimately boned. About the third time I reached for the surface and only touched a colder, deeper place of water was when I knew I was in an entirely unpredictable heap of water rolling hell. Keeping calm was beginning to seem less and less like an option, but out of sheer survivor's will, I finally reached for my ankle to clumsily disconnect the leash so that my board would get the fuck away from and the fins would stop trying to impale me into an even quicker death.

Nothing stupendously dramatic happened when I initially blacked out. A disembodied version of Weezer's Island In The Sun didn't start strumming and I didn't see my life flash before my eyes when my lungs began to sting, but in my unconscious state there was a moment when I wondered if I was sinking to the bottom of the ocean in preparation to land on my feet. That was impossible, but as the oxygen deficiency busted brain cell after brain cell with euphoric pops, it didn't entirely seem that way.

When I came to it wasn't the typical kind of resurface to consciousness where I woke up and _there I was_. My lips were burning and the central part of my sternum was being hammered toward the back wall of my torso and there was something briny bubbling along the back of my throat. All at once I began to violently choke, but my eyes were still too heavy to open and see what was happening around me. There was an iron curtain between what I wanted to do and the neurological actions I was being given access to.

"There he blows!" All at once I was rolled over onto my side by two hands. Whoever was talking to me I didn't recognize, but his voice was a shaken cocktail of mockery and laziness poured on the rocks. "Spit that shit up, kid."

I gasped, realized I hadn't been breathing and then gasped even harder as salt water continued to squeeze out of my stinging lungs like a dirty sponge. Gripping onto the wet sand beneath me until granules were stuck beneath each one of my nails, I kept hocking up mouthfuls of briny water until my eyes dripped tears and my trachea threatened to lodge itself into the central cavity of my mouth so I'd stop making it slave away.

Xion's voice was the first I recognized and both the water in my ears and how hard she'd been crying garbled her speech. "You're an idiot, Vanitas!"

"Xion," Roxas was on the other side of me and wasn't being particularly sensitive to her, "try not to call the guy who wasn't breathing two seconds ago an idiot, alright?"

"That's a gnarly cut you've got on your neck," murmured Voice-Of-Complete-Stranger. He tugged me into an upright position and didn't say anything when I burped water onto my lap. "I've got a first aid kit in my van for shit like this. Think you can stand?"

When I opened my eyes the sun was resting on the horizon and orange skies had morphed into heavy lavender, but whether or not the world up above was mimicking the colorization of fruit found on the Grapevine was beaten into unimportance. Before me sat not Roxas or Xion, but a total enigma of a man. Obviously deriving from Samoan decent, he was seemingly extraterrestrial with cheekbones sharp enough for a sushi kitchen and a mess of vermillion hair that could've only been accomplished through bleach, sheer will and a conditioning deeper than the ocean itself. I'd definitely seen him before, but I couldn't place from where right that minute. Considering our positioning, it was clear who was responsible for forcing my lungs to function again, but I didn't think to thank him.

"Maybe someone should carry him?" Roxas suggested like a total asshole.

I scrambled to my feet only to lose my balance and land on the redheaded guy's bony knees with a piggish grunt. Without my consent, he shoved his hands beneath me and lifted as if I were weightless. If I'd had the energy, then I would've flailed my way back onto the sand so that I could keep myself from having my pride snapped like a moist toothpick, but I was still occasionally coughing and rubbing at my eyes. I'd seen dead jellyfish less helpless than I was right then, and the worst part was not being able to will it away.

He was the owner of the van from before, and he dropped me into the lawn chair with the kind of grace that could've broken my spine. Xion knelt down in front of me with a frown and glanced over at Roxas as she patted my cheeks a couple times until I brushed her off with another annoyed grunt, but before I could say anything else, my supposed savior had thrown open the back door to his van, stepped inside with a dip of his van and returned with the kit and a water bottle.

Finally, after what'd been too long, I said something. "I'm okay."

"Your neck says otherwise." The man had to lean down embarrassingly far to clean out the wound on my neck. "This might need stitches. You know, you fucked yourself pretty good out there. I saw what was going to happen the moment you went for it. Hasn't anyone ever told you not to surf when you're righteously pissed off?"

"I _wasn't_ pissed off."

Roxas decided to throw in his input and I watched the two hold eye contact for too long. "He's always like that. Vanitas is sort of the redheaded stepchild out of us."

"Yeah?" He rolled his jaw and kept staring at Roxas before he finally cut his gaze from the blond and back to my neck. Whether Xion had noticed was beyond me. "I'm Axel, by the way. Axel Laemoa—if you're into formalities. Lucky for you I just came into town like yesterday? You'd have been butchered, otherwise. Your friends were gaping like fish."

Suddenly, he poured alcohol onto my neck and I bit back a wail. "Son of a _bitch_!"

"Shit, son. That was peroxide." Axel leaned over my shoulder to give me a critical look, and I thought about elbowing him. "Don't look at me like that— _whoa_ , nice eye color. That's some yellow hazel if I've ever seen it before. Thank your momma for that next time you see her, alright?"

"I'll be sure to." Only when he smacked the bandage onto the back of my neck did something finally hit me like the wave I'd been crushed beneath two seconds beforehand. Maybe the impact had knocked some sense into me. "Wait, Axel Laemoa?"

"Yeah—what about it?" I could tell from his voice that he was wearing a shit-eating grin. "Have we met before or something? I've got a pretty good memory, you know?"

Ignoring anything my friends might've wanted to say, I turned in the lawn chair and judiciously stared at him with my mouth hanging open. At first, I wanted to be skeptical, but there was no way I could've missed it the first time had I not been suffering from a potential concussion. "Roxas, hand me your bag."

Roxas watched me, almost embarrassed. "Vanitas, don't be weird."

"Shut up, Roxas, and hand me the bag."

He did as I said and padded away from me and toward his backpack. Once he was at my side with it, I snatched the sack out of his hand and unzipped it. Xion hissed when the smell bombarded all four of us, and I began digging into the bag for the waterlogged magazine I'd peeled through earlier that afternoon. When I found it I looked at the front and stared at the cover in total disgust. The sky was dying, but I could still see that Axel was definitely on the front of the magazine, riding through a pipe and looking fucking awesome.

"That's _you_." I announced to mainly myself. "That is _you_."

Axel smoothly took the magazine out of my hand and stared at the cover with a smile an amused head tilt and searching eyes. "Well, would you look at that? I didn't really like that picture, but whatever, I guess. Is the article good?"

Roxas arched an eyebrow and was smoothly staring. "Yeah, _really_ good."

Standing in front of me was a legend. He was the man who'd paved the way for the newest generation of big wave surfers and gained respect for the up and coming younger crowd. He'd rode monsters before he'd even graduated high school, ripped apart Portugal, Japan and Australia, but for some reason he was standing in Twilight Cove, saving my ass from baby waves and living out of an ugly van that cost more than a three years' rent.

Xion, being the smart one, thought to ask the right question. "Hey, Axel. Do you want to go with us to get food? We'll cover you as a thanks."

He acted as if he honestly needed to contemplate free food. "I mean, you guys don't have to cover me, but I'll go with."


	2. Do Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Gourmetbutt on Tumblr.

"So - what  _exactly_  do you do?"

The worst question, and something I'd considered a social faux pas since the dawn of my post-teenage consciousness. Asking someone what he does is an unsubtle method of gauging another person and the quickest way to determine if that person is worth your time. Anyone who asks deserves a lip curl and turn of disregard, not a forced thoughtful stare while sucking down steak-soaked fries with an audience. Not just any audience either. Close friends who aren't afraid to call others on their crap just incase they attempt to pad their sad, sack of shit existences with gratuitous details.

"Surf school," I started, noting how Roxas was processing each syllable I directed at Axel. "Like - surf lessons, overpriced merchandise, screaming children with screaming suburban moms, kooks looking for name brand insignias."

Axel sucked the gooey remnants of an avocado slice off his thumb. "Basically, capitalism meets surf. Basically, surf."

"I mean -  _basically_."

"I picked up my first sponsor at a surf shop."

We exchanged glances, he knowingly smiled, and I was still emitting thoughts the way a snail secretes mucus. I was prepared to finish my fries and head home because we weren't conversational masters and there was no platonic chemistry brewing beneath the surface of our intermingling breathing. He'd saved my life, which was cool of him. But there were no riveting tales associated with his professional career to lock and sink me. Plus, I was tired. Having the gods of surf brutalize my body and soul for thirty seconds was enough to make me think about calling in sick for life.

Axel's thoughtful chewing was too moist. "Right, so you're teaching surf because..."

He wanted me to explain myself. "Because it pays the rent sometimes?"

"A lot of things pay the rent, Vanitas." He rolled my name around his tongue. "Vanitas is your real name?"

"Do I look like someone who'd give himself a nickname?" I asked and picked at my fries with hesitant fingers. Eating in front of new people was emotionally devastating, but when the dude gave me a look that implied he truly suspected I'd made up the name, I scowled. "My mom pulled it out of her ass."

"I like it," Axel promised and was doing his best not to laugh.

The two of us were standing outside of a local dive called Never Was, which was a tired shack that sat on the beach's border and only a five minute walk away from where I'd barfed up salt water. Xion and Roxas were leaned against the unsteady structure's front wall, discussing the plenty of other people they knew who'd wiped out as viciously as I had, dutifully stuffing their faces with authentic fried food. It was obvious they were attempting to be nonchalant about coexisting in the same space as Axel, but by the way they continued to glance in his direction when he wasn't looking, their enthusiasm for having the chance to be in his presence was glaring. My embarrassing introduction had been quick, swift like ripping off a bandaid, but theirs was slow burn like chili left on the stove for three days and nights.

"Right," I paused, "so -- why're you camping out in Twilight Cove?"

"My friend Demyx tipped me off." Axel's laughter was light and rang along the back of his throat like a bell when I rolled my eyes. "Don't tell me you're not a _fan_."

"You're here because of that article."

"Demyx writes a lot of articles," he said, looking to the side, still smiling.

"Don't play coy."

He reached into my basket of fries and stole a piece of steak from my hand. We weren't close to being acquainted enough for him to be taking my food, but I reached into his and did the same, making a point to pick the biggest piece of coconut breaded shrimp he had left. He noticed and proceeded to take another strip of steak as if that made us even, and we wordlessly settled the battle on that note while chewing in silence and staring one another down.

"I'm going home," I said loud enough for Roxas and Xion to hear.

"Are you surfing tomorrow?" Axel asked.

I'd already started walking backward and out of the weak light cascading from the two small service windows, only bothering to wave at Roxas who was giving me an aggravated stare of disbelief. "Doubt it. Why are you asking?"

"If you decide not to be so elusive, then I'll be around."

"Noted," I said and turned around to walk home.

* * *

The next morning, I was standing outside of the same red van I'd went to bed assuming I'd avoid for the rest of the summer. My board was cradled beneath my arm, and a bag of street cart tacos sagged in a paper sack in my opposite hand. Skies were clear, the waves were prolific and music was wafting from the flung open backdoors of the vehicle. Was I a potential ass kisser who had no reason to be remotely interested in someone I hadn't formed much of a platonic bond with the night before? Yes. But it was solely in the name of gain. Ignoring Axel's offer to hang one-on-one would've been ignorant on my part. Even if he wasn't much of a conversationalist, at least he had connections I could utilize.

Axel rolled out of the back, shirt removed and bare feet exposed to blistering sand, and he doubled over with a can of hairspray in hand. The aerosol can projected a mist over the top of his hanging hair, and he dropped the hairspray onto the sand only to ruffle his already gnarly locks with combing fingers. He stood up, flipping the tangled mess back, and then blindly pieced his matted hairstyle into place. It wasn't until he finished did he notice me, and the way he lit up was embarrassing.

"Look at who showed." His eyes flitted toward the food in my hand. "Is that a peace offering?"

"Don't be presumptuous," I muttered. "I hope you like chicken. It was the freshest."

"I'll eat anything."

Axel motioned for me to sit on the back of his van. I paused when I rounded the thrown open door because the interior of the van had been gutted and reconstructed to resemble a minimalistic apartment. The central focus was obviously the mattress, but lining it were two custom shelves with sliding front doors haphazardly thrown open. They revealed a lot about Axel's sentimentality because knickknacks, pictures from his travels and even the occasional magazine featuring himself were scattered, but throughout the mess was the essential packed bowl that looked as if it'd been smoked on before he'd decided he needed to fix his hair. There was a haze throughout the van, and it stank of skunk and funk. I would've bet my life those scents were permeated in the deepest fibers of his seats.

"I get you hate that I'm here," Axel said, breaking the silence as I dug food out of the bag. "But Twilight Cove sure is something else."

"It's home."

He watched me shove chips into my mouth, and I handed off his one of three tacos. "Do you like it here?"

"No." I paused after that. "...no."

Axel faintly smiled and looked straight ahead. We were facing the ocean, and the view really was worth roughing it in a van for. "Bet you wouldn't feel that way once you travelled a while."

"Those are fighting words."

"Are you the type to fight the truth, Vanitas?" He stuffed food into his face and didn't look at me. "Thanks for bringing the food. This rules."

He finished his meal first and scooted back into the van. After some rifling through a stack of papers, he revealed a single burner and grabbed a tea kettle with what appeared to be leftover water still inside. A couple cups appeared along with a wooden box containing multiple containers of loose leaf tea, and I wasn't surprised. Tea was either really in or I'd missed this adulthood memo about three years ago. Xion and Roxas also regularly drank tea.

Axel held up the box and displayed his collection. "What's your preference?"

I squinted, reading off the tiny labels. "Coconut chai."

"Someone's full of surprises."

My expression turned morose. It was just tea. "Sure."

While the water boiled, I couldn't stop glancing his way, and I knew we needed to talk. He beat me to the punch. "Are you feeling okay? Do you need to be out in the water?"

"Don't worry about it."

"Are you -- "

"It's fine."

Only when our food was settled did we stand outside and begin sliding into wetsuits. No one was at the beach for some reason. This was unheard of, but I had other things on my mind; such as stripping down to nothing with a complete stranger. As used to it as I was, my brain was clicking into an invasive mode where, when we turned our backs to one another, the urge to glance over my shoulder had to be fought. I stared straight ahead instead, breathing evenly and trying not to fall face first into sand because I was struggling into my suit. Before I could reach behind myself for the string to tug up the zipper, I felt foreign fingers skirt along my lower back and yank upward with a slight tug. My lungs deflated, and my body jerked. 

"Do me."

The way my brain processed that proved I was a sleaze. Axel turned his back toward me, and I saw the string on his zipper was cut. I paused, thought about Roxas' exact same methodology, and knew they needed to be best friends. My eyes skirted to the side. With uncertain hands, I grabbed the zipper and then ruthlessly tugged it closed. Had I been any rougher, then I might've zipped his flesh down to the muscle. Zipping closed wetsuits was a weirdly intimate gesture, and we weren't even talking much. I was sure that, after this single hangout, we were never going to speak again.

"What was your damage yesterday?" Axel asked as we strode toward the water side-by-side. From the looks of it, he was being sponsored by Vans because that's all that he'd been wearing since I'd seen him. There was seriously no greater sponsorship than that, and my brain was attempting to downplay him as much as possible, but he'd competed in the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing. For the past few years, Axel had gotten closer and closer to being a Pipe Master Champion, which was top tier. Once that happened, there was no going back. Just the way he carried himself over the sand was so certain, fearless, and though I refused to be intimidated, he was so far ahead of me. By the time he'd reached my age, he'd already switched sponsors once, dropped out of college and taken the reigns of judging for extra cash.

"I almost broke my neck," I muttered.

"Not _that_ damage." We dredged through the tide together. "You were whipping yourself around like the waves just told you they'd emptied a load in your mom." My expression didn't phase him. "There was no other way to describe it. You were straight up violence out there, and there's no fighting the ocean, man. You can't fight  _God_."

"It's how I surf."

"That 'how' is how you're gonna get yourself killed." Axel went belly down on his board, and we began paddling out. "With that kind of energy? You can't get into big wave surfing. Do you want to watch me for a second and see if you see any kind of difference? It's one thing to watch recorded surfing. It's another to see it in person."

His arrogance was making my guts burn. "I've been to competitions. I know how others surf. Just because you're wearing a Vans wetsuit for free doesn't mean you can tell me how to surf."

"Yeah. It does." He paused and then pointed at me. " _Stay_."

Abandoned, the last thing I wanted to do was watch him be better than me, have more than me. There was no escaping the tutelage, though. Axel was too far ahead before I could think of a kind of philosophy that wouldn't force me to face our differences head on. What he was implying was that there was something  _wrong_  with me. He'd been in my exact position, working at a shop and living day-to-day, but he'd managed to get sponsored while in high school. My discord was problematic, but fuck him for appearing out of nowhere and thinking he was a wave deity allowed to make me focus on my errors before he'd even pitched in for beer. One wrong slip and he could die, too. What had happened the day before had been a fluke that made me look like a sack of trash for a surfer. It'd all been bad timing, and him  _teaching_  me instated the kind of relationship I'd fought to make impossible between Terra and me the day I'd started working for him.

A wave that made my blood run cold was building, but Axel casually leaned back on his board, somehow not flipping from the weight disproportion, and watched. He waited for it to crash, and I had to duck down to keep from being pounded by the aftermath, but Axel was defying the laws of physics and seemed fine. When the second one, a wave less merciless, appeared to be ready for the curl, he paddled out and turned to give me the kind of cocky grin that made my fingers go numb. Axel effortlessly clenched the sides of his board, forced himself up as if made of air, and then rode that gargantuan of a local wave with the kind of ease that looked plucked straight from the Tree of Divinity. From where I was, I couldn't see much of his expression, but his limbs were loose, and his hips lithely moved as his body asked permission from the ocean, and that's when I saw what he meant.

Axel wasn't demanding anything from the water. His coexistence with the element was smooth, articulated just enough to be polite to the Mother Nature reverberating beneath his body. One false demand and he'd be pummeled, but he was being coaxed along as if holding a hand. He was a demigod. That's what he was, and my lips were parted while those handful of seconds ticked by. Only when the pipe curled over him and he disappeared did I start breathing again.

* * *

 Maybe he felt bad for showing me up, but afterward, Axel didn't ride any bigger waves. There was also the possibility he realized riding out like that with no one around to watch wasn't safe even when he seemingly possessed a devout worship of the water. There was a reason humans were God fearing, and that theology seemed to dig deep into the concept of 'not pushing his luck.' After an hour or more of my stubborn resolution to not change the way I viewed my surfing habits, we left the water for even more food. It was a wonder anyone in my crew hadn't developed cottage cheese saddlebags. If we didn't walk everywhere, surf twice a day and have physically active jobs, then there was no way our bodies could've handled our caloric intake. We lived for food, or at least, I did. The thought of eating got me out of bed most days.

There was so much residual hairspray in Axel's hair that he didn't need to fix it again after getting dressed. Instead, he shook it out and then glanced up at me as I showered off salt water, my body slouched into contrapposto while running my fingers through my hair. It was still early, and the major heat wave of the day was growing stifling. Surf always made me tired, but it was the good kind that left the inside of my core sleepy, as if shrouded in a potent miasma. The dry heat only made that sensation worse, and I knew that the second I hit air conditioning I'd be aching for a nap.

"Roxas told me you work for Terra." Axel reached out into the cold spray of fresh water raining down on me and unzipped the back of my wetsuit even though I didn't need him to. He then dropped his hands and continued to mess with his hair, feeling for the style the same way he had before. "We used to be friends."

"Used to be?"

"He's not in the lineup much anymore," Axel explained. "But I was thinking we could hunt him down."

"You'll see where I work." I yanked off the sleeves of the wetsuit and scraped my skin clean with my nails. The last person I wanted to see was my boss on my day off. "What else did Roxas tell you?"

"Nothing." Axel was then a confirmed bad liar. There were worse things.

Twilight Cove was at its peak when we walked toward the heart of it all. The town was on a slope that faced the ocean with a cliff backdrop always threatening to slide during storms. We drifted through the crowd, Axel in a Billabong muscle t-shirt and cut off shorts and me mirroring him but in all black. I was conditioned to be on the lookout for my friends, who were always drifting down the sidewalks by midday. This was why I could feel Axel's eyes on me but wasn't moved to meet his stare. The sensation was weird, appreciated, and then followed by disgust because I had appreciated it.

"Vanitas!" Xion's voice carried over the crowd, but she was so short it was hard to spot her.

"Over there," Axel aided, pointing toward the small girl who was waving and holding a cone of blue soft serve that spiraled higher than her head when she held it up. Before we reached her, she'd already managed to suck down half of it.

"I can't believe you got Vanitas out of the house." She looked at Axel with admiration that bit me wrong.

"I didn't expect him to show up, but there he was; bright and early with breakfast."

Xion stared at me. " _Really_?"

"I didn't want to waste my day off," I muttered.

"Don't be so pouty, Vanitas." She offered me a bite of her cone, but I waved her off. "Are you feeling okay? You didn't reply to my texts last night. Roxas and I were getting kind of worried."

"I was, you know..." I gestured with a roll my hand. "Sleeping."

"Try not to be a smartass." She turned away from me and smiled at Axel. "How're you liking our humble abode?"

"Good waves, good food. Can't ask for much else."

"Now  _that_ is a good motto."

Axel invited her along to eat with us. Xion declined, explicitly stating she wanted to, but Gross was meeting her for a drink after his first of two shifts, and she was already going to be late. My internal eye roll almost externally manifested. Roxas and Xion were always together to begin with, and it wasn't like they missed out on one-on-one time. The only reason Xion hadn't moved in with him was because her parents were devout Catholics, and the idea put them on edge enough to consider cutting her off. Most of the time, her apartment was entirely empty, solely there to pay the rent of her relationship with Roxas.

"She's pretty damn cute," Axel observed. He watched her turn the corner. "What's her story?"

"Roxas' girlfriend, but you probably figured that one out last night." I thoughtlessly grabbed his bicep to pull him out of the way of a pack of tourists. "Watch it. They'll eat you alive."

"That's not a story, Vanitas. Give the girl some credit?" Something dawned on him, and I dropped my hand when I realized I'd been holding onto him for too long. "Is there bad blood there? Am I really dense and not seeing the signs? This happens to me a lot, so get used to it. I'm not trying to be insensi - "

"She's my ex-girlfriend. Roxas stepped in like two hours after we broke up. That's being generous, too. And now things get kind of weird when she runs off to see him. Sorry if her story is the last thing I give a shit about discussing with anyone, especially someone who'd probably think she's the next best thing since sliced bread." Axel parted his lips, sucking in a slow breath, and his chest lifted as he considered what I'd told him. He had nothing to add except this continuing state of confusion that was beginning to confuse me. "You can stop making that face. You'll get the story from someone else eventually. But do me the favor of not getting it from her. She's executed making me look like trash."

"Fuck. No, I mean…" He rubbed the side of his face and then looked to the side, his shoulders sagging. " _Damn_."

"It's not a big deal."

"It's not that."

My expression grew wary. "What do you mean?"

Axel waved me off and leaned back, his weight shifting onto a single foot as if everything was casual. "Nothing. Let's eat."

We decided on Bettie's because Roxas had told him about the place after I'd gone from Never Was, and when we took our seats, Sora appeared from seemingly nowhere. He grabbed a chair, spun it, and then flopped down beside me without noticing Axel. Sora wasn't intentionally rude, but he was one track minded on occasion, and he clearly had something he needed to tell me. I figured I'd introduce Axel, and blow his mind with the pro surfer, after he'd finished with whatever tangent was building up the back of his throat like a burp.

"I've got a favor to ask."

My eyes were already reaching for my brain. "No promises."

Sora, as mentioned before, was Roxas' twin brother, but he was genuinely the more likable of the twins on a grand scheme. Ever since our grom days, he'd been a significant part of my life. Enough to where people wondered how Roxas was my best friend and Sora's brother and it wasn't somehow the other way around. People constantly asked if we were related, but it was always followed by me rolling my hand and pointing out the fact we weren't even the same race. It was the hair and general face shape, but that was about it. The endearing vegetarian with limited asshole ways was pragmatic and ruthlessly kind when he needed to be. There was actually an obsession with Sora among the general population that I'd never fully understood, but there was always one of those people in a friend group. Too kind, too little depth, but still the  _darling_ , for lack of a better word. That was Sora. Plain and simple.

"Will you come over early and help me with the bonfire tonight? I'll buy your beer. I hate setting that shit up alone, but Roxas has a double shift, and Riku won't be off until an hour after it starts. I know you kind of hate this stuff…"

"You hate helping your friends?" Axel interrupted as he leaned forward and pointedly looked at me, half-smiling and being a smarmy sack of shit. "Vanitas, we have a lot to work on."

I reached for my orange soda with pursed lips. "I was just about to say that Sora didn't need to stress so hard, and I'd gladly help him set up a couple of chairs. Don't superimpose."

" _Whoa_ ," Sora paused only to lean in closer and get a better look at Axel. "Hello, sir."

More eye rolling. "Sora, this is Axel Laemoa. Axel, this is Sora. Sora is Roxas' brother."

They shook hands, and Sora kept staring. "Do you want to come to my bonfire-thing tonight?"

The kid could've made friends with an axe murderer, and Axel wasn't immune to his charm. Before I could come up with a scapegoat for Axel, the man had leaned over, unconsciously pressing his shoulder against mine to get a better look at Sora. All at once, the claustrophobia had decided to set in, and I gently pushed Axel away.

"I'll be there."

That was that. I knew, from then on, there was no getting away from Axel. Once Sora sunk his claws into someone, they were there to stay, to permeate the group with their influence and become another member gleefully added to group texts by Sora. It was almost like a terminal disease bent on interpersonal communications and inescapable flesh fusion. The way we all intermingled so violently made John Carpenter's "The Thing" look saccharine, innocent, chaste.

Sora was satisfied with being introduced and exchanging numbers with Axel, and only when he was for certain Axel would be coming to the bonfire that night did he leave us. Kairi was about to go on break, and he wanted to see her.

"He's a nice kid," Axel noted while watching him disappear through the front door with Kairi's lunch in hand. "All of you kids are pretty damn nice. Except you. You're terrible."

Even though he was joking, my internal organs flinched. "Every group needs a black sheep."

Not that I was much of a black sheep, but I also wasn't about to lay all of my friends dirt out to someone new. We ate our food, and I'd been right about the air conditioning. Four bites into my burrito and my eyes were getting heavy. Coffee or a nap were in my immediate future, but the thought of coffee, even iced, on such a hot day made my brain turn to fuzz.

"You're good at silences." Axel stole food off my plate.

I wasn't bothered by his thievery this time, and I took a piece of steak from his mess of fajitas. "I'm tired."

"You haven't recovered from yesterday." He chewed slow, rolling his jaw, and looked at me. "Wanna do the opposite of a wake and bake?"

"Bake and nap." I sipped my soda. "Doesn't have a good ring."

"But the idea of it is pretty good right now. I could sleep."

I rubbed my temple. "But we were going to see Terra."

"Terra can wait," he assured me and looked me over. "You all good with that?"

"In your van or…" The thought of the both of us trying to nap there was startling, uncomfortable even. This entire day had been underlyingly weird. Getting to know people wasn't as easy as the movies made it out to be. Sometimes clicking took longer than anyone wanted, but I could tell Axel was attempting to ignore social order by moving us right along. My guard was too high for that kind of vulnerability, though. I was patiently waiting for him to become impatient with me. "...my place?"

"Trust me," Axel began, pointing his fork at me. "You're gonna want to nap in my van."

* * *

 The sheets of his bed were full of sand probably dispersed from his toe nails. I couldn't imagine him having the best hygiene while living out of a van, but the scent of herb and incense covered that rankness. We'd found a comfortable balance of space in the compartmentalized home, and he was packing a bowl while we overlooked the ocean. Music trilled from his speakers, but the acoustic guitar and throaty singing of a band I'd never heard before was simply background noise neither of us paid much attention to. Already, I was sprawled out on my side, head facing the doors while I listlessly watched the waves roll over one another, persistent about their existence. It was admirable, a goal of mine, even.

"Do you smoke a lot?" He asked.

I listened to him twist the grinder back and forth. "Only sometimes."

"We won't smoke too much of this then," he said, chuckling. "We wouldn't want to miss Sora's thing."

"No," I lied. "That'd really suck."

"You're a terrible liar."

We only took a couple hits, but what he owned was strong enough to make the world lapse. The gentle furrow of Axel's eyebrow when he took a hit, held and then slowly exhaled left my fingers twitching and brain melding against the back of my skull. I thought about things too quickly, exhaled and closed my eyes only to dwell on nothing and then reopened them all at once to realize my head was tilted backward, facing the waves and Axel was lying beside me with his back turned toward me. Somehow, without remembering when, I'd fallen asleep and Axel had draped his body over the sheets beside me.

Inside the van it was surprisingly cool. The breeze from the ocean tackled every opened window and wafted around us both, coaxing pieces of my hair to move. I could see the bareness of the back of Axel's neck, how those dyed strands twisted about and gently stirred in time with the lapping waves. I must've still been high because there was the resounding urge to kiss that olive skin, down his bared shoulders and then ask him if he'd ever fucked a stranger, if he'd ever fucked a guy. The perversion was overwhelming, too much for me, and I rolled over so that I didn't have to look at him. He was a complete stranger, but I was already slipping into tormenting ideations of what it'd be like to scrape sea salt off his skin.

I fell back asleep after that thought, and when I woke up to Axel gingerly shaking my bicep, I decided to make it a dream. The van's overhead light was on even though the sun wasn't entirely down, and I realized we'd slept for hours. Axel was wide awake, changed and his hair looked significantly cleaner than it did during that morning. I lifted my head, glanced over my shoulder and remembered where I was all at once. He laughed when I flopped back down and ignored the offer of another water bottle. It dropped down beside me with a dead plop.

"Sora texted me. He wants us to head out there in a few seconds." Axel scratched the side of his head. "I told him you were sleeping with me, and he took it the wrong way. We've been sorting it out for the past ten minutes."

"Tell him to eat an ass." I paused and then sat up a little. "Fuck. He thinks you fucked me."

"Not anymore, but he did. My bad."

I rubbed my eyes and rolled over onto my back. "How long have you been awake?"

"Long enough to shower and piss." He leaned over me, and I fought the urge to push his face away with the heel of my palm. "Did you know you wheeze in your sleep?"

Sora was already at the spot he'd planned the bonfire at. Coolers full of ice, ready for everyone else's beer, were standing around a dead fire pit, and he was yanking open chairs. When he saw us, he bounced up and down and waved both hands. He was also easy to excite, something I couldn't say about myself or Roxas. On our way there, Axel had picked up beer for the both of us and a pint of some lesser known brand of whiskey that would get the job done if things escalated to that point. The idea of mixing beer and liquor had made me frown, but Axel promised he'd drink it first and then move onto beer.

"Does anyone know how to start a fire?" Sora pointed at his kindling and stacks of wood. "Because I do not."

Axel dropped the beer into the cooler with a splash. "I can help, you sad excuse for a beach bum."

As if he'd done it a million times, Axel grabbed the lighter, some pieces of paper and built the fire while Sora and I set out chairs and began the process of pitching a tent in the sand. Sora was full of charm, and when we were satisfied with the tent, he showed that charm by tossing down a welcome mat in front of the tent's door. Axel and I both gave him looks, and he swore up and down it was only for people to wipe their feet off on. I had a feeling it was because he existed on an entirely different dimension of friendliness. Axel's snort and playfully inquiring gaze that were both directed at me and only me alluded to him thinking something along the same lines. He was charmed, though. That much was obvious.

"What're you drinking tonight?" I asked, watching Sora jerk a cooler closer to us. It was full of marinated flatiron steak, chicken, tofu and what looked like pork tenderloin. "Are we cooking all of that?"

"And whatever Kairi and Riku bring."

Axel leaned in closer to look at the food. "You kids are spoiled."

"Yeah," Sora admitted, smiling wistfully. "So, Twilight Cove, Axel. What's with that?"

"I feel like I'm gonna be asked this a lot." He handed me a beer and then opened one for himself. Apparently, I wasn't going to be drinking the beer Sora had bought me, but he wasn't pouting about it yet. "I'm in some down time between tours, competitions, the works... Demyx told me this was the place to go to hangout right now, and here I am. Aqua and Terra know me from when I was a major kid, so I knew I wouldn't come here and know no one. You guys were the first to find me, though. Haven't even called Aqua or Terra yet. I think Terra changed his number or something."

"We could've gone to see him today," I exhaled.

"You didn't want to see that meatloaf on your day off. It was written all over you."

Axel was socially superb, but it blew chunks seeing someone exist so seamlessly with others when I was perpetually a fish out of water. Kairi and Xion arrived swaddled in their boyfriends' hoodies, and though he was less expressive with women, precarious even, Axel still managed to make them laugh. It occurred to me quickly that Axel had been holding back with me. I wasn't as approachable, as interesting. There was no way he'd want to hangout with me one-on-one after he met the rest of my friends and realized there were actually socially ept people in Twilight Cove, and I was the ultimate downer.

"You're staring," Roxas observed. He took a seat beside me on my southwestern blanket and cracked open a beer. His smile said a thousand words. "Sora told me about you sleeping with Axel."

"Don't be weird."

"It's funny is all."

Then wearing a beanie and sweatshirt I'd grabbed from the back of Sora's car, I shook my head. "Only in expense of me. It's not like that. We smoked and fell asleep because we were up early."

"He was asking abstract questions about you all night, too."

My hands tingled and face grew hot. "Probably because he wanted to know about the dumbass he saved and whether or not he wasted his time."

Roxas furrowed his thick brows. "Not everyone's as morbid as you are, dude. Some people  _care_ about human life regardless of how  _annoying_  they can be with their trash talk and piss poor attitude."

"Fuck you," I said, but Roxas slung his arm over my shoulders as we both watched Axel migrate from one side of the crowd to the other. He was that night's star and the beach was his Carnegie Hall. "Wonder what it's like."

"Wonder what what's like?"

"To be that lucky." I was three beers in and finally ready to talk. "Look at him. He met us last night and now he's integrated himself into the group. It hasn't even been twenty-four hours, and I can tell he's going to hang with us all summer. People love him. He's even nice and good looking on top of being talented. Even worse, he's honest. It's fucking weird. I don't know if I can stand people like him. You know, people who have everything?"

Roxas crinkled his nose. "We don't know shit about him."

This was true, but Axel had me convinced. It took him a couple hours, but the redhead returned to me on the blanket where I was smoking cigarette after cigarette, watching the fire crackle and appreciating the cooking food. Sora and Riku hadn't touched meat in years, but they'd bought it for everyone else. Riku was rough around the edges, kind of disgusting, but they were both inherently good people, and sometimes it was nauseating to think about how kind and gracious everyone managed to be on top of having moments when their raw, terrible truths reverberated hard enough for me to want to hate them. There was no balance either. No one knew how to stay neutral. Not even me.

"Want to go for a walk?" Axel shook the pint in my face.

I grinned and yanked it from his fingers. "Can I have a drink?"

"You can have all of it if you'll walk with me."

"But the food…" I watched Sora turn a piece of chicken as Riku critiqued his cooking methods. Sora waved him off and Kairi pushed at their heads. "What if we miss it?"

"Don't be such a lardass. Come on." Axel stood up and helped me to my feet as if I were made out of cotton swabs. "You're so damn small."

"Everyone's small compared to you, asshole."

"He gets mean when he drinks!" Axel stopped, and tilted his head. "Well,  _meaner_."

I shoved at him a little, but I mostly used him to push off and walk away toward the shoreline. Axel reached out, grabbing one of my forearms and let me drag him along. Our only light was the moon overhead, and the cliche of the scene we were experiencing together felt more like home than anything else in all of Twilight Cove. A comfortable kind of home, and not the kind that made me search plane ticket prices on my browser. We were both barefoot, and the sand had gone from burning to cool and pleasant. This moment, however, was shot to shit when I tripped over a piece of driftwood and then stepped directly onto seaweed in an attempt to catch my balance. Knowing the scent would soak into my skin for the rest of the night, I groaned and dragged my foot for several feet.

Axel snorted. "You can't even walk."

"I tripped over an object. I'm not drunk."

"That anyone could've seen."

Turning on my heels, I faced him and began walking backward, hands shoved into my back pockets. "I've only had a few beers. Don't even try right now."

"Or what? What're you going to do, Vanitas?" He paused only to look to the side, his smile bright and magnetic even in the dark. "Hold on. What was I even trying?"

I couldn't place my finger on what he was doing, but he was doing it hard and without a single fucking ounce of shame. Suddenly, I ran my hands down the sides of my face and laughed. "I'm not sure."

"Oh, fuck," Axel laughed back and then stopped, causing me to stop too. "Nice laugh."

I screwed up my face in confusion, still laughing in spurts. " _What_?"

"That's all. You have a nice laugh. I've never heard it before now."

**Author's Note:**

> Bless Kat for helping me with all the details. Otherwise I'd have been completely lost.


End file.
